APIhttp://www.pcper.com
PC Perspectivehttp://www.pcper.com/images/podcast-logo-600x600.pngenGDC 15: Intel shows 3DMark API Overhead Test at Workhttp://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-Intel-shows-3DMark-API-Overhead-Test-Work
<p>It&#39;s probably not a surprise to most that Futuremark is working on a new version of 3DMark around the release of DirectX 12. What might be new for you is that this version will include an API overhead test, used to evaluate a hardware configuration&#39;s ability to affect performance in Mantle, DX11 and DX12 APIs.</p>
<p><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-Intel-shows-3DMark-API-Overhead-Test-Work" class="inline-image-link" title="View: 3dmark1.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2015-03-04/3dmark1.jpg" alt="3dmark1.jpg" title="3dmark1.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="602" height="339" /></a></div></p>
<p>While we don&#39;t have any results quite yet (those are pending and should be very soon), Intel was showing the feature test running at an event at GDC tonight. In what looks like a simple cityscape being rendered over and over, the goal is to see how many draw calls, or how fast the CPU can react to a game engine, the API and hardware can be.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rFhu4lpRAKw" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>The test was being showcased on an Intel-powered notebook using a 5th Generation Core processor, code named Broadwell. Obviously this points to the upcoming support for DX12 (though obviously not Mantle) that Intel&#39;s integrated GPUs will provide.</p>
<p>It should be very interesting to see how much of an advantage DX12 offers over DX11, even on Intel&#39;s wide ranges of consumer and enthusiast processors.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-Intel-shows-3DMark-API-Overhead-Test-Work" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-Intel-shows-3DMark-API-Overhead-Test-Work#commentsGraphics CardsProcessors3dmarkAPIDirectX 12dx11dx12FuturemarkGDCgdc 15MantleThu, 05 Mar 2015 01:46:43 +0000Ryan Shrout62479 at http://www.pcper.comGDC 15: AMD Mantle Might Be Dead as We Know It: No Public SDK Plannedhttp://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-AMD-Mantle-Might-Be-Dead-We-Know-It-No-Public-SDK-Planned
<p>The Game Developers Conference is San Francisco starts today and you can expect to see more information about DirectX 12 than you could ever possibly want, so be prepared. But what about the original low-level API, <a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Exposes-Mantle-New-Hardware-Level-API">AMD Mantle</a>. Utilized in Battlefield 4, Thief and integrated into the Crytek engine (announced last year), announced with the release of the Radeon R9 290X/290, Mantle was truly the instigator that pushed Microsoft into moving DX12&#39;s development along at a faster pace.</p>
<p>Since DX12&#39;s announcement, AMD has claimed that Mantle would live on, bringing performance advantages to AMD GPUs and would act as the sounding board for new API features for AMD and game development partners. And, as was always trumpeted since the very beginning of Mantle, <a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/PCPer-Live-Interview-AMDs-Richard-Huddy-June-17th-4pm-ET-1pm-PT">it would become an open API</a>, available for all once it outgrew the beta phase that it (still) resides in.</p>
<p><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-AMD-Mantle-Might-Be-Dead-We-Know-It-No-Public-SDK-Planned" class="inline-image-link" title="View: mantle1.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2015-03-02/mantle1.jpg" alt="mantle1.jpg" title="mantle1.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="602" height="338" /></a></div></p>
<p>Something might have changed there.</p>
<p>A post <a href="http://community.amd.com/community/amd-blogs/amd-gaming/blog/2015/03/02/on-apis-and-the-future-of-mantle" target="_blank">over on the AMD Gaming blog</a> from Robert Hallock has some news about Mantle to share as GDC begins. First, the good news:</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>AMD is a company that fundamentally believes in technologies unfettered by restrictive contracts, licensing fees, vendor lock-ins or other arbitrary hurdles to solving the big challenges in graphics and computing. Mantle was destined to follow suit, and it does so today as we <strong>proudly announce that the 450-page programming guide and API reference for Mantle will be available this month (March, 2015) at www.amd.com/mantle.</strong><br />
&nbsp;<br />
This documentation will provide developers with a detailed look at the capabilities we&rsquo;ve implemented and the design decisions we made, and we hope it will stimulate more discussion that leads to even better graphics API standards in the months and years ahead.</em></p>
<p>That&#39;s great! We will finally be able to read about the API and how it functions, getting access to the detailed information we have wanted from the beginning. But then there is this portion:</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em><strong>AMD&rsquo;s game development partners have similarly started to shift their focus</strong>, so it follows that 2015 will be a transitional year for Mantle. Our loyal customers are naturally curious what this transition might entail, and we wanted to share some thoughts with you on where we will be taking Mantle next:</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em><strong>AMD will continue to support our trusted partners that have committed to Mantle</strong> in future projects, like Battlefield&trade; Hardline, with all the resources at our disposal.</em></p>
<ol>
<li class="rteindent1"><em>Mantle&rsquo;s definition of &ldquo;open&rdquo; must widen. It already has, in fact. <strong>This vital effort has replaced our intention to release a public Mantle SDK</strong>, and you will learn the facts on Thursday, March 5 at GDC 2015.</em><br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li class="rteindent1"><em><em>Mantle must take on new capabilities and evolve beyond mastery of the draw call. It will continue to serve AMD as a graphics innovation platform <strong>available to select partners with custom needs</strong>.</em></em><br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li class="rteindent1"><em><em><em>The Mantle SDK also remains available to partners who register in this co-development and evaluation program. However, i<strong>f you are a developer interested in Mantle &quot;1.0&quot; functionality, we suggest that you focus your attention on DirectX&reg; 12 or GLnext.</strong></em></em></em></li>
</ol>
<p>Essentially, AMD&#39;s Mantle API in it&#39;s &quot;1.0&quot; form is at the end of its life, only supported for current partners and the publicly available SDK will never be posted. Honestly, at this point, this isn&#39;t so much of a let down as it is a necessity. DX12 and GLnext have already superseded Mantle in terms of market share and mind share with developers and any more work AMD put into getting devs on-board with Mantle is wasted effort.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-AMD-Mantle-Might-Be-Dead-We-Know-It-No-Public-SDK-Planned" class="inline-image-link" title="View: mantle-2.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2015-03-02/mantle-2.jpg" alt="mantle-2.jpg" title="mantle-2.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="602" height="376" /></a></div></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>Battlefield 4 is likely to be the only major title to use AMD Mantle</em></p>
<p>AMD claims to have future plans for Mantle though it will continue to be available only to select partners with &quot;custom needs.&quot; I would imagine this would expand outside the world games but could also mean game consoles could be the target, where developers are only concerned with AMD GPU hardware.</p>
<p>So - from our perspective, Mantle as we know is pretty much gone. It served its purpose, making NVIDIA and Microsoft pay attention to the CPU bottlenecks in DX11, but it appears the dream was a bit bigger than the product could become. AMD shouldn&#39;t be chastised because of this shift nor for its lofty goals that we kind-of-always knew were too steep a hill to climb. Just revel in the news that pours from GDC this week about DX12.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-AMD-Mantle-Might-Be-Dead-We-Know-It-No-Public-SDK-Planned" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GDC-15-AMD-Mantle-Might-Be-Dead-We-Know-It-No-Public-SDK-Planned#commentsGraphics CardsamdAPIdx12MantlesdkMon, 02 Mar 2015 19:31:59 +0000Ryan Shrout62447 at http://www.pcper.comAMD Mantle and NVIDIA 337.50 Scaling Demonstrated with Star Swarm on AM1http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Mantle-and-NVIDIA-33750-Scaling-Demonstrated-Star-Swarm-AM1
<p>While doing some testing with the AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini APU to determine it&#39;s flexibility as a low cost gaming platform, we decided to run a handful of tests to measure something else that is getting a lot of attention right now: AMD Mantle and NVIDIA&#39;s 337.50 driver.</p>
<p>Earlier this week I posted a story that looked at performance scaling of NVIDIA&#39;s new 337.50 beta driver compared to the previous 335.23 WHQL. The goal was to <a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-33750-Driver-Analysis-Single-GPU-and-SLI-Tested">assess the DX11 efficiency improvements that the company stated it had been working on</a> and implemented into this latest beta driver offering. In the end, we found some instances where games scaled by as much as 35% and 26% but other cases where there was little to no gain with the new driver. We looked at both single GPU and multi-GPU scenarios on mostly high end CPU hardware though.</p>
<p>Earlier in April I posted an article looking at Mantle, AMD&#39;s answer to a lower level API that is unique to its ecosystem, and <a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Battlefield-4-Mantle-CrossFire-Early-Performance-FCAT">how it scaled on various pieces of hardware on Battlefield 4</a>. This was the first major game to implement Mantle and it remains the biggest name in the field. While we definitely saw some improvements in gaming experiences with Mantle there was work to be done when it comes to multi-GPU scaling and frame pacing.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Both parties in this debate were showing promise but obviously both were far from perfect.</p>
<p><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Mantle-and-NVIDIA-33750-Scaling-Demonstrated-Star-Swarm-AM1" class="inline-image-link" title="View: am1setup.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/review/2014-04-18/am1setup.jpg" alt="am1setup.jpg" title="am1setup.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="602" height="339" /></a></div></p>
<p>While we were benchmarking the new AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini based APU, <a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-AM1-Athlon-5350-Reviewed-Low-Power-Low-Price-APU-Masses">an incredibly low cost processor that Josh reviewed in April</a>, it made sense to test out both Mantle and NVIDIA&#39;s 337.50 driver in an interesting side by side.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Mantle-and-NVIDIA-33750-Scaling-Demonstrated-Star-Swarm-AM1">Continue reading our story on the scaling performance of AMD Mantle and NVIDIA&#39;s 337.50 driver with Star Swarm!!</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Mantle-and-NVIDIA-33750-Scaling-Demonstrated-Star-Swarm-AM1" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Mantle-and-NVIDIA-33750-Scaling-Demonstrated-Star-Swarm-AM1#commentsGraphics Cards337.50amdAPIgeforceMantlenvidiaradeonStar SwarmFri, 18 Apr 2014 18:53:54 +0000Ryan Shrout60055 at http://www.pcper.comTime to give up on programming applications for Skype?http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Time-give-programming-applications-Skype
<p>If you have used third party software to bring extra functionality to Skype like call recording or integrating the ability to integrate in a non-standard way then you better enjoy it now as you only have until December before you are cut off.&nbsp; At that time Microsoft will be blocking access of all third party apps to Skype which will break not only your own applications but will reduce Skype&#39;s compatibility with some headsets.&nbsp; You can follow the link to the Change.org petition that is in <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2303130/skype-api-shutdown-leads-to-petition">The Inquirer&#39;s coverage</a> of this decision.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/General-Tech/Time-give-programming-applications-Skype" class="inline-image-link" title="View: index.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2013-10-25/index.jpg" alt="index.jpg" title="index.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="250" height="201" /></a></div></p>
<blockquote><p>&quot;ANGRY DEVELOPERS, a breed not unlike Angry Birds but without the desire to fling themselves at naughty pigs, have started a petition asking Microsoft to withdraw its plan to switch off the desktop API for Skype.&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is some more Tech News from around the web:</p>
<p><b><a href="http://forums.pcper.com/forumdisplay.php?f=54">Tech Talk</a></b></p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://www.hardocp.com/news/2013/10/25/linkedinrsquos_new_mobile_app_called_lsquoa_dream_for_attackersrsquo" target="_blank">LinkedIn&rsquo;s New Mobile App Called &lsquo;A Dream for Attackers&rsquo; (and doesn&#39;t integrate with MSExchange) @ [H]ard|OCP</a></li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/25/microsoft_q1_2014_earnings/" target="_blank">Microsoft: Ha ha ha, Wall Street friends - THIS time the victory is OURS @ The Register</a></li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia2013/" target="_blank">NVIDIA &#39;The Way It&#39;s Meant to Be Played&#39; 2013 Press Event @ OCC</a></li>
<li>
<a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/25/1154237/uk-police-seize-3d-printed-gun-parts-which-are-actually-spare-printer-parts" target="_blank">UK Police Seize 3D-Printed &#39;Gun Parts,&#39; Which Are Actually Spare Printer Parts @ Slashdot</a></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Time-give-programming-applications-Skype" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Time-give-programming-applications-Skype#commentsGeneral TechAPImicrosoftskypeFri, 25 Oct 2013 17:19:33 +0000Jeremy Hellstrom58749 at http://www.pcper.com